Relentless!

The electrician finally came out this afternoon in the 105° heat. Rewired the pump and put in two new breaker boxes at the oasis. The pump still works intermittently like it had before. He said he'll be back Friday to put a new breaker box at the guesthouse. If that doesn't fix the problem, then it's probably in the buried underground cable somewhere. I think, in that case, I'll go to a 115 volt pump rather than dig up the place. And I'll check with the electric company too. Sometimes they have phases that don't work right.

At least I have water to pump. Could be worse. Came to town and heading for bed. Exhausted.

Yesterday's perfect storm

Perfect for CMO anyway. Three miles south didn't get anything. Usually a monsoon fills everything and washes bad, plus ten years' worth of water goes away down the arroyo. Debris washes into the tanks, etc. But yesterday's rain was a long soaking rain that ran just enough to almost fill the big tank, with no negative effects. (Reflection is clouds.)

 

Of course, that's why I got stuck. If it had been a monsoonal gully washer the upper dirt tank would have filled and I could have seen that from a ways back. No reason to go close. Sometimes it fills when I hardly get anything here and the ground nearby is still firm. The runoff comes from the east. So when it was only half full, like yesterday, it didn't occur to me that the ground would be saturated, but the long soaking rain did the deed.

Tank in background

After I finished repairing the 3" line, which took me most of the morning, I took the rest of the day off.  Rested and watched dragonflies. A rare luxury when I don't need to be watering.

I'm sure to get some Mexican Amberwings in a month or two. I'll definitely post it online because I know quite a few dragonfly chasers who want that species in Texas. I'm the only person who's documented it in Texas, so I'll be on top of that.

I thought having wet ground and water everywhere, it would be cooler today, but got up to 104° anyway. That's really unusual. And scary. We need relief from this heat.

Oh hail the rain gods!

The oasis got an inch of rain this afternoon so the pressure is off for awhile. I still need rain in Aug or September or later to make it through until next rainy season, but I can look forward to dragonflies and butterflies this summer. Last summer the rain didn't come until mid-August and by then it was too late for a good dragonfly showing.

I wasn't really expecting a good rain. Maybe a little shower if lucky. So my little pump was down in the big tank. It's a chore to take it in and out. But I knew once it started pouring there was a possibility the arroyo would run and the tank might fill up. But I couldn't go into the tank to retrieve the pump in the pouring rain and lightning. I sat there patiently waiting for the rain to end. When it did I hurried into the tank and grabbed the pump. There was a window of about 3 minutes to do it in, as water was already overflowing the spillway when I went in.

The Western Soapberry thicket has to be very happy.

It seems when the first big rain of the year comes everything that can go wrong does. For starters I got stuck in the mud and had to walk to the house to call my sisters to help get me out. Then a connection that I needed to hook up in the lower dirt tank was suddenly too long and no way could I curve the line into place.* With the help of a strong man it could've been done. I cut the pipe that had been the right length last year but wasn't strong enough to get it in place. Finally got it angled in enough that I could put screws in it to hopefully hold it. By then I was so sore and exhausted, going on sheer will-power. The connection held and about 30 minutes before I was through pumping no water was coming through the line. Too fatigued and sick feeling to deal with it. Just turned off the pump. I've never had that happen before. Couldn't find a break in the line or debris blocking the inlet. But since there's just a foot of water left in the dirt tank, it's probably not enough to get the pump primed again. Will have to wait until the next rain to deal with it. I'm not too concerned with losing the water since it'll surely rain again this summer and I have plenty of water in the meantime.

If you're wondering why I didn't already have the connection hooked up, it's because I don't know ahead of time which hook up I'll need. One I need if both dirt tanks fill up and the other I need if only the upper tank fills. Had we known we were going to build two dirt tanks in the beginning it could have been plumbed better. Too late now. Most of the line is buried deep under the dike. Just gotta persevere and work with what I have.

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* That 3" fast line is great stuff but it's notorious for getting longer or shorter, and when you bury it, it invariably works itself out of the ground. Other than that I love it and have lots of it. It was given to my late husband.

Back at the oasis

Spent most of the day dragging hoses around trying to get things watered, but got distracted by dragonflies and stuff so didn't finish. A slow process without the pressure pump.

Here's a Black Witch Moth (Ascalapha odorata) that I flushed while watering. It was so big I thought it might be a bat.

And the first Great Pondhawk for the year.

This American Kestrel was so brown in the back that I wasn't sure what it was, but there's nothing else it could be.

Doing some Alpine time

It's not bad, I'm always happy wherever I'm at, but I do miss being at the oasis. Feeling like I might be missing out on good butterflies or dragonflies. In town I try to get more rest so I can do more when I get to the oasis.

The last couple of days I've been playing on my ancestry tree. It's like looking for butterflies or dragonflies..... a treasure hunt. New photos of ancestors or relatives are the treasure here. There's a blank on the tree when there's no photo, so like a bingo card, I'm always trying to fill in the blanks. Kind of like Jim Peterson does on his Texas Bird Images (http://www.texasbirdimages.com/).

Here's an example from my tree (happens to be my great-grandparents). The descendants from my grandparents are pretty much filled in, but not so much from one of their other sons, my great-uncle, Adolph. Takes a lot of research to find photos of distant cousins etc. Facebook is helpful, but really time-consuming. So whenever I locate one it's like winning an online game, only better. Not very often do Facebook users post old photos of their ancestors, but once in a while it happens. Much more rewarding than crossword puzzles.

The tomatoes are doing fine. Taking long to ripen due to all the heat, but enough for us.

Here's a gorgeous Two-spotted Forester Moth photographed by Kelly Bryan yesterday in the Davis Mountains.

Electrician visited oasis today

The bottom line is I'm going to pay him $2000 to put in new breaker boxes all the way. Gotta have decent electricity if I'm going to have an oasis. He said 240 power is going through the control box, so the problem has to be in the wiring to the pump. So that's getting new wiring too. He said he'll do the work Monday.

On a more pleasant subject, saw my first Eastern Amberwing for the year at the oasis. Hoping Mexican Amberwings will show up soon.

And saw this Saltbush Sootywing...

Heading back to town I stopped at the thistle patch across from Elephant Mountain (less than a mile south of the picnic area there). Couldn't relocate the Desert Cloudywing, just this common Checkered-Skipper, but it was hot and I wasn't feeling too good. I think I got overheated yesterday without realizing it. I don't know how it happened either, but I wasn't very well last night. Still have a headache.

I thought I was taking it extremely easy yesterday. Only spent an hour outdoors in the morning and didn't go back out again until evening. Don't see how it happened, but it did.

Adversity galore!

While driving to CMO this morning I couldn't resist stopping at a huge long patch of thistles along Highway 118, approximately 30 miles south of Alpine. No interesting butterflies, I thought, but Brian corrected my ID on this one. Much more interesting than if it had been the Northern Cloudywing I thought it was.

Desert Cloudywing

Got to CMO eager to put in the new breaker and hopefully solve the electrical problem. By then it was 100.° The breaker didn't fix the problem. The electrician has promised to be here tomorrow. Until then I'm just going to water what I can with my little sump pump. I keep hearing about all the wonderful rain other people are getting. Still waiting my turn here.

But as horrible as things are here, it's not as bad as 2011 when I bought and hauled water for a whole year. The high today was 108.° When it cooled off to 103° around 7 PM I started watering.  Got in a couple of hours before too dark. Slow going with the little pump but better than nothing.

Alpine dove

Hanging around in Alpine today I was wondering if this dove is an African Collared-Dove or a Eurasian Collared-Dove. I don't know how to tell them apart.

Excessive heat

I believe this must be setting records. I don't remember any year where so many consecutive day were 110° or more. Today was 112.° I don't remember it ever getting that hot here. You'd think the tanks with water and the trees would make the oasis cooler than other places in the area, but even Lajitas only got up to 110° today. Weird.

Yesterday evening there was a small shower and today light sprinkles but no relief. Mac and I put a new pressure switch on the stucco tank line but it won't even come on intermittently now. So frustrated. Here he is taking a photo of the wiring so he'll be sure to get it on exactly like the old one was.

He did, but that wasn't the problem either. It could be worse. What if I was out of water? Then I'd be watching everything die. At least now I can manage to get it watered, just harder and slower.

Mac is packed and ready to head back to East Texas before daylight in the morning. We've had a lot of fun in the six weeks he was here.

A little shower is better than none

Photo by Tim McKenna

My sister called this evening that she got .08" of rain awhile ago. Hopefully, the oasis got as much or more. Going down early AM and will see. If nothing else it cooled things down. Last several days have been 110° every day.

My son thinks it's possible the pressure switch on the pump is bad so I'm going to replace that tomorrow. The electrician is scheduled to come Wednesday and the new breakers I ordered will arrive Tuesday. Something will get it fixed, surely. Meanwhile, at least I have water to water with, even if it is a very slow process.